How a young company's retro backpacks took over thousands of cities and college campuses

Even
if you haven't heard of Herschel Supply Co., it's likely you've
seen the brand's products.

The nostalgia-inspired backpacks, bags, and accessories are
ubiquitous in urban areas and college campuses. They're clearly
derived from heritage designs, and are even affixed with the
company's patch in a faux-historic script. They're certainly less
sporty and technical than other similarly sized bags on the
market.

Herschel, founded in 2009, now has 10,000 points of sale in 72
countries around the world.

The privately held, Vancouver-based company reported a 35% rate
of growth from 2014 to 2015. It expected growth to stay steady at
30% through the end of 2016, though the company declined to share
exact revenue figures with Business Insider.

Nostalgia
is only part of the brand's appeal, according to Lyndon Cormack,
who founded the company with brother Jamie. It was also about
filling an underserved niche in the market: lifestyle.

"We kept on coming back to this
idea that the bag industry in general was either a little bit too
commodity, or a little too sport-driven," Cormack said to
Business Insider. "There wasn't a real lifestyle bag company,
someone who celebrated not only functionality but fashion, in
this sort of neck of the woods where we are now."

Cormack doesn't believe the brand was buoyed too much by trends,
and that backpacks supposedly coming back into fashion wasn't a
"driving factor."

"[We] used to always hear that
men are wearing backpacks and it became sort of maybe a trend,"
Cormack said. "That's kind of a little bit concerning because
I've been wearing a backpack as my go-to bag forever, so I guess
I was unfashionable and became fashionable at a certain point in
time."

"We use that word 'nostalgic' around here all the time," Cormack
said. "Looking back before you move forward is something we're
big fans of."

The company strives to celebrate famous designs of the past,
taking inspiration to create something new, according to the
founder.

"We aren't interested in living in the past, and we look at those
items in a different lens and try to figure out if those items
were created today," Cormack said.

To do that, Cormack said that Herschel will be investing in
innovation. One of the newest examples of this is the company's
new proprietary and trademarked fabric called
ApexKnit - a woven fabric that will significantly reduce the
waste and energy it takes to create a bag. Cormack is so excited
about the fabric, he says he carries an ApexKnit bag himself.

Herschel is also expanding into China in 2017, opening a
wholly-owned entity in the country this year.

"China is a blank canvas for us,"
Cormack said, admitting that nailing the country's rapidly
changing consumer preferences will be a challenge.

"[We're a] group of people who
want to get it right," Cormack said. "That's our goal. So we hope
we get it right."